Cash: Colon likely to pitch this weekend
New York Yankees' Bartolo Colon works against the Oakland Athletics. (May 30, 2011) Credit: AP
Yankees ghosts are everywhere. Beyond the paranormal presence of the Ruths, DiMaggios and Mantles, there are the 11 players who are on the 2011 team in spirit only, those currently condemned to the disabled list but several now hovering -- the team brass sincerely hopes -- for an impending reappearance.
Take pitcher Bartolo Colon. Gone since June 12, Colon seemed something more than a Bronx apparition last night. Though Colon slipped through the clubhouse, hours before the game against the Milwaukee Brewers, without speaking, general manager Brian Cashman predicted "you're going to see him this weekend.''
On the mound. Against the Mets. Probably Saturday.
During a long pregame discussion about the progress of his various rehabilitating players -- where have you gone, Derek Jeter? Phil Hughes? Rafael Soriano? Joba Chamberlain? -- Cashman confirmed that Colon's recovery from a strained left hamstring, suffered June 11 while covering first base, was going well.
Colon most recently participated in a simulated game at the team's Tampa Home For The Infirm on Monday.
"We brought him up here to work him out, get cage work, batting practice, do a bullpen session and get a better feel for it,'' Cashman said. "But I think there's a good likelihood he'll be back this weekend.''
At 38 and having missed all of the 2010 season with a bad pitching shoulder and elbow, Colon's resurgence as a Yankees free agent this year had been along the lines of a Joe Hardy deal with the devil. A controversial offseason medical procedure, in which stem cells were extracted from the fat in Colon's abdomen and bone marrow in his pelvis, run through a machine to concentrate the solution, then injected into Colon's shoulder and elbow, rendered him suddenly as effective as ace CC Sabathia.
Colon's 3.10 ERA remains the best in the starting rotation; he has a 5-3 record and has struck out 72 batters in 781/3 innings.
Having him back -- and possibly Hughes, before long -- "is better,'' Cashman said, "than having those few days where you couldn't get me on the phone because I was too busy looking high and low and left and right and talking to all our personnel'' in search of reinforcements.
He has had enough of those spooky times.
